D&D 5E Roleplaying in D&D 5E: It’s How You Play the Game

[Swarmkeeper]

Eh, GMs often have a poor handle on what the players are going to fix on. I've GMed thousands of RPG sessions, players still manage to surprise me sometimes.

Oh, absolutely this. And, players will often miss more clues than they get - sometimes the really obvious ones, too. And latch onto something that wasn't anything. Part of the fun, really. And, guilty as charged when I'm a player.

I agree, once someone says they are going in a certain direction, the GM needs to assess exactly what is up. That is true in most systems, certainly 5e.

Agreed.

Oh, I agree, my own system is much more militant on this kind of point, it fundamentally disallows the use of checks unless there are explicit stakes. Of course the GM could also narrate the PC falling on their butt and looking stupid, lol.

Meaningful consequences are a positive thing for the game.

Time for a Wandering Grognard Check, what's your luck?

LOL. I played 1e as a kid, too.

 

[Maxperson]

Really? Every time the DM describes the environment is an opportunity to telegraph something to the players. We seem to have a disagreement on the definition of telegraphing.

As I said above, telegraphing can be super obvious (e.g. "the wall is wet") or really obscure or something in between.

With darkvision in dim light, it's just going to look like dark rock unless it's got a stream of moving water coming down or has so much water accumulating that it's forming drops, and even then you probably aren't going to see the drops unless you're at the wall. Dim light makes it hard to see.

I'm going to climb out of this example rabbit hole now. If you want to continue talking about how the wet wall telegraphs nothing, feel free.
(see how I used telegraphing to give you the hint that I won't be responding?)

There was no telegraphing there. You said it straight out.

 

[Scott Christian]

Eh, GMs often have a poor handle on what the players are going to fix on. I've GMed thousands of RPG sessions, players still manage to surprise me sometimes. I agree, once someone says they are going in a certain direction, the GM needs to assess exactly what is up. That is true in most systems, certainly 5e.

This brings up a good point. As many here, I have DMed the same adventure several times. And when you do that, what you notice is that language matters. A lot! Describe something off the top of your head, and you get a huge variance in what players decide to focus on. Use a fixed description that outlines, implies, exaggerates, or highlights something, and the wandering eye becomes not so variant.

 

[pemerton]

So the example of gameplay we're imagining goes something like this:

1.<The DM has adequately described the environment which includes a wall.>
2. Player: Dave the Barbarian climbs the wall to see what's at the top.
3. DM: Not so fast Dave, make a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) check to find out just how slippery this wall really is!

If I was the player in this example, I might feel that (3.) calls (1.) into question.

In my game it would be simple. "As you start climbing, you realize the cliff is far more slippery than it first appeared.". I don't see any conflict.

<snip>

I'm never going to describe every detail of the setting perfectly and don't try. Some things cannot be known or confirmed by a PC until an attempt is made.

This gives rise to the question: to what extent can a player augment their Climb Walls check (however that is handled in a given system - in 5e it is most likely STR (Athletics) ) via a Perception, Survival, Slippery-Walls-wise or similar check?

Some systems make this very straightforward (eg Burning Wheel; HeroQuest revised; 4e D&D, provided the context is a skill challenge). Some have no provision for it at all (eg AD&D). Some have a half-baked approach (eg Rolemaster; 4e D&D outside a skill challenge context).

I'm not sure what the canonical 5e D&D approach is to this.

 

[Fenris-77]

This gives rise to the question: to what extent can a player augment their Climb Walls check (however that is handled in a given system - in 5e it is most likely STR (Athletics) ) via a Perception, Survival, Slippery-Walls-wise or similar check?

Some systems make this very straightforward (eg Burning Wheel; HeroQuest revised; 4e D&D, provided the context is a skill challenge). Some have no provision for it at all (eg AD&D). Some have a half-baked approach (eg Rolemaster; 4e D&D outside a skill challenge context).

I'm not sure what the canonical 5e D&D approach is to this.

I'm pretty sure 5E leaves this up to the DM. There's no mechanical heft given to the kind of problem solving I think you're indexing anyway. The fact that it's left up to the GM is, for me, a significant issue with the way 5E is written, because it should matter, possibly quite a bit. IMO this is where OSR folks (of which I'm at least occasionally one) get passionate about the need for clever solutions to problems that don't rely on mechanics. 5E is mechanical enough that some people, perhaps a lot of people, don't adjudicate it a flexible way that rewards that kind of thinking. This is just my impression of course, I don't have significant surveys or anything, but I do think that it's at least broadly correct.

 

[pemerton]

Gygax didn't even have a handle on this, in OD&D and 1e PHB climb walls is described as the ability of a thief to climb SHEER SMOOTH WALLS (impossible climbs). LATER, in the DMG IIRC that was amended somewhat as there were adjustments provided, up and down, for wall condition, so the ability changed (and thus arose the question of how to adjudicate non-thieves climbing).

in Gygax D&D Climb Walls was rated as your chance of climbing a SHEER SURFACE, and the common assumption was anything short of that was climbable by anyone, albeit the GM could impose whatever specific obstacles and thus make you describe how you overcame them (or presumably declare the effort impossible, and thus in the realm of the Climb Walls ability).

Not quite. Here's the text from Gygax's PHB p 27:

Ascending and descending vertical surfaces is the ability of the thief to climb up and down walls. It assumes that the surface is coarse and offers ledges and cracks for toe and hand holds.​

I don't have a copy of the Greyhawk supplement, nor of Holmes Basic. In Moldvay, the text is as follows (pp B8, B10; the fluctuating adjectives and capitals are original, not my transcription error):

Climb sheer Surfaces . . . A thief's training includes learning how to . . . climb steep surfaces . . .​

So, because of the texts I have access to, I've never interpreted climb walls in the more "do impossible things" that you describe. I suspect that interpretation must be driven by Supplement 1 or Holmes characterisations of it that I don't have access to.

 

[pemerton]

I'm pretty sure 5E leaves this up to the DM. There's no mechanical heft given to the kind of problem solving I think you're indexing anyway. The fact that it's left up to the GM is, for me, a significant issue with the way 5E is written, because it should matter, possibly quite a bit. IMO this is where OSR folks (of which I'm at least occasionally one) get passionate about the need for clever solutions to problems that don't rely on mechanics. 5E is mechanical enough that some people, perhaps a lot of people, don't adjudicate it a flexible way that rewards that kind of thinking.

Well, the notion of describing declared actions in such a fashion as to achieve success, given the fiction, without a check being required is something that was talked about upthread. For some of the participants in this thread, it is an express goal of play (for the players in their games).

That would satisfy your OSR inclinations, I think. Though in itself it still doesn't tell me how augmenting works! - maybe some of the information that will help come up with a no-check-required action declaration might be accessible only if a successful check (on eg WIS (Perception) or WIS (Survival) or INT (Investigation) ) is made.

Because I'm a "say 'yes' or roll the dice"-oriented RPG, where the trigger for saying "yes" is not fictional positioning but narrative heft, I prefer approaches that allow augments to be factored in as modifiers to checks.

if a player says, “instead of going up the steps, i want to climb up the wall and peek over. Does it look climbable?” I might (factoring in the character) just let them have it without dice.

What does it really add to the story to make them roll dice at this point?

I take that last question to be intended rhetorically. But treating it as literal, my answer would be it depends on what narrative significance - if any - it carries. It's a while since I remember something like that happening in a RPG session that I ran, but there were genuine stakes - ie could or couldn't the PC establish an advantageous vantage point for surveying the giant steading - and so a check was required. Failure wouldn't necessarily mean the climb failed, but it would mean that the advantageous vantage point was not established. Because the check succeeded, the details of any such failure (eg is the climbing PC spotted by giant guards) didn't need to be worked out.

Although the system in question was not 5e D&D, I don't see any particular reason why 5e couldn't be run in a similar fashion.

 

[Lanefan]

I see it as a sign that the game has become more narrative driven. Instead of listen (roll!) at every door, check for traps (roll!) on every chest, search for secret doors (roll!) in every passage, I have shifted my style…in response to what I’m reading and hearing, in published content and from the community…to one that saves the dice for moments of high tension/stakes.

So if a player says, “instead of going up the steps, i want to climb up the wall and peek over. Does it look climbable?” I might (factoring in the character) just let them have it without dice.

What does it really add to the story to make them roll dice at this point?

If the wall's high enough (i.e. 10' or more) that a fall could cause damage then they're rolling every time unless the wall is trivially easy to climb*.

Why? Because damage taken means resources used in recovery, be they time or healing or whatever.

* - which might well be the answer to the question "Does it look easy to climb?", because hell - at least the player had the character bother to look first!

 

[Lanefan]

I disagree, in Gygax D&D Climb Walls was rated as your chance of climbing a SHEER SURFACE, and the common assumption was anything short of that was climbable by anyone, albeit the GM could impose whatever specific obstacles and thus make you describe how you overcame them (or presumably declare the effort impossible, and thus in the realm of the Climb Walls ability).

I went with the DMG interpretation (which you referenced in a different post), that different walls have different degrees of difficulty. Advantage of not starting DMing until 1984, I suppose - a few of these things had been ironed out by then.

That said, anyone can try these things; only if you're untrained in how to do it your odds of success are much slimmer than for someone who is.

 

[Lanefan]

This brings up a good point. As many here, I have DMed the same adventure several times. And when you do that, what you notice is that language matters. A lot! Describe something off the top of your head, and you get a huge variance in what players decide to focus on. Use a fixed description that outlines, implies, exaggerates, or highlights something, and the wandering eye becomes not so variant.

IME that variance more to do with different player types than anything else. Which is more than fine; if adventures played out the same way every time they were run, it'd be way more boring running them more than once.